Monthly Archives: April 2012

One fantastic thing about video games, or interactive mediums in general, is how easy it is to slip into the shoes of a character. Want to be an ass today? Put on Kratos’ sandle… boot… things… Whatever those are. Want to be an emo young adult that has the entire world’s fate resting on his shoulders? Put on your shoes made of belts. Even if these characters have independent personalities and clear identities, when you talk about aspects of them determined by interactivity, it’s easy to say: “I did this.” Unfortunately, it can be hard to find some variety between all dem vidya gaem shoes. However, recently I stepped into one pair of shoes in particular that I haven’t worn before: A set of heels.

Xenoblade Chronicles is on the horizon for North American Wii owners. If you’re an impatient Americano, such as myself, you cursed Reggie’s name and moved to Europe, or probably just imported the title. Those who joined the European elites had a fantastic experience eight months before a single American copy will hit GameStop shelves. But at the end of the day, they’re all just copies of the same game – a game that has ended eight year struggle for the team behind it, Monolith Soft. No, it didn’t take Monolith Soft eight years to develop Xenoblade. This is a struggle that has spanned across all Monolith Soft’s titles since the developer was conceived.

An article written based on a Destructoid community blog topic, focusing on disappointing releases. You can find my original incredibly old and poorly written Xenosaga Episode III review here.

Not having touched Mass Effect series, I can’t really say anything about what’s going on with BioWare and their ending fiasco at the moment. Somethin’ ’bout cupcakes. Cupcakes or not, I can sort of, kind of, almost, not really relate to them with another sci-fi RPG trilogy that was a bit of a disappointment for myself. Monolith Soft’s Xenosaga was set to be one of my favorite series, and a shining example of the developer’s more unique JRPG designs. I have an undying love for the team, thanks to their engaging and strategic battle systems. Xenosaga I and II were true to this. Critics, however, complained about II being overly complicated. Instead of just taking a step back with Xenosaga III, Monolith Soft basically took it to the chopping block and removed everything but the battle system’s torso, reducing it down to a traditional RPG experience. That alone was a disappointment on my part. It was a liveable change, but good heavens the worst was yet to come.

This article is pretty old now and unfortunately turned out be my last on TSG — for now at least. I was not so certain that I fit the direction of the new blog and a lot of what I wanted to do wasn’t relating back to TSG, so I decided to pull the plug on my position there. Hopefully I can work with them again in the future. Anyways, Operation Rainfall article, yeah.